This invention relates to a communication system that searches for messages suitable to individual users from, for example, Internet, and provides the messages to the users. The present invention is related to the following five Japanese patent applications, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Patent application No. 8-9521 filed on Jan. 23, 1996
Patent application No. 8-67278 filed on Feb. 28, 1996
Patent application No. 8-139689 filed on May 10, 1996
Patent application No. 8-139690 filed on May 10, 1996
Patent application No. 8-163679 filed on Jun. 5, 1996
This application is related to:
application Ser. No. 09/125,833 filed Feb. 26, 1997, entitled xe2x80x9cCommunication System Capable of Providing User with Picture Meeting Characteristics of User and Terminal Equipment and Information Providing Device Used for the Same,xe2x80x9d now U.S. Pat. No. 6,157,946, issued Dec. 5, 2000.
application Ser. No. 09/633,407 filed Aug. 7, 2000, entitled xe2x80x9cAdvertising Supported Internet Access Service.xe2x80x9d
application Ser. No. 09/188,571 filed Nov. 10, 1998, entitled xe2x80x9cMessage Searching System and Terminal.xe2x80x9d
application Ser. No. 09/206,385 filed Dec. 7, 1998, entitled xe2x80x9cInformation Provider, Terminal And System And Recording Medium For The Terminal.xe2x80x9d
application Ser. No. 09/117,331 filed Nov. 6, 1998, entitled xe2x80x9cSystem For Displaying Two Independent Images From Network.xe2x80x9d
application Ser. No. 09/276,708 filed Mar. 26, 1999, entitled xe2x80x9cTerminal Which Stores Information on Communication Network in Local Memory Automatically.xe2x80x9d
Internet users can communicate with various host computers within Internet through a host computer (which is called an information provider) offered by an Internet provider. The terminal connected to Internet reads out images, such as home pages, as designated by the user, and displays the images.
Recently, many virtual shops have been established on Internet, and users can purchase goods by mail-order through Internet. Programs and data are also sold through Internet. Payment for these goods or services is made by transmitting a credit card number and expiration date over Internet.
Advertisement of such goods and services from virtual shops, as well as advertisement of goods or services offered by ordinary retailers are often seen on communications networks. For example, the home page of Yahoo (trademark), which is a search engine for home pages on Internet, displays advertisements as sidebars.
To sell goods or services efficiently using advertisements and the payment system mentioned above, a counter system is also used to count the number of times users access the home pages of virtual shops which sell goods or services. Based on the counter results, advertisers can estimate, to some extent, whether an advertisement has been effective.
However, a conventional counter system can not accurately measure the number of times that users actually look at a particular advertisement, because it is not known whether the users are actually watching that advertisement when the advertisement is displayed on users"" terminals. In particular, when an advertisement using moving pictures is displayed for a certain period of time, users may stop watching the advertisement halfway through.
Furthermore, as the amount of information offered on communications networks, such as Internet, increases, it becomes difficult for a user to find appropriate information or advertisements for goods or services, which the user is actually interested in. It is also difficult for an information provider to supply information to users for whom that information is suitable, because the users who utilize Internet have become a highly diverse group of consumers.
In addition, concerning payment for goods or services, there is the possibility that a credit card number or expiration date may be improperly used by a third party because the credit card number or expiration date is transmitted on the communications network, and many people can access the communications network. Since information transmitted on Internet is recorded in several servers (host computers), it is dangerous for users to transmit their credit card information. This situation curbs the growth of sales of goods and services via communications networks. While systems for encoding credit card information and transmitting the encoded information have been developed this information remains insecure when transmitted over Internet because the codes can be decoded.
If an advertisement is embedded in a home page on Internet, the advertisement can not be offered to a user until the user actually accesses the home page. Further, when the user scrolls down the home page in the window, the advertisement disappears from the window. Also, when another window is opened over the browser window, or the browser window is moved off the screen, the advertisement does not reach the user.
With the conventional counter system, the user easily manipulates the number of times a home page is accessed, for example, by repeatedly accessing the home page for the purpose of increasing the number of times accessed. In such a case, the counter result for that home page or its advertisement is deceptive and not correct. Moreover, the conventional counter system can not offer information about what types of users access what kinds of home pages or advertisements. It is difficult to determine from the counter results of the conventional system who the target customers of a particular good or service are and how the good or service should be marketed.
For example, it is highly probable that those users who are interested in the product xe2x80x9cskisxe2x80x9d will also take an interest in the product xe2x80x9cski suitxe2x80x9d or the service xe2x80x9cski tourxe2x80x9d. Several goods or services are often related in this way, all appealing to the same customers. However, the conventional counter system can not identify such related goods or services that users would be interested in, and therefore fails to efficiently market the appropriate goods or services to users.
To use a communications network, such as Internet, users have to pay a connection fee to Internet provider who owns the host computer to which the user""s terminal is connected. This fact discourages users from accessing the communications network for a long time, which presents an obstacle to expanding advertising, sales or payment transactions via communications networks.
It is an object of this invention to provide a communication system, which can overcome all of the problems, described above.
In order to achieve the above object, the communication system according to the first aspect of the invention has a message database which stores an image, text, sound, or combination thereof to transmit to a terminal. The message read out from the message database is transmitted to a terminal, and displayed on the terminal. The message database also stores a parameter for each user, the parameter representing the amount of access by the associated user. When a message is displayed on a terminal, the value of the parameter for the user of that terminal is increased. However, if the user is not actively recognizing the message, the value of the parameter is not increased. In this configuration, the value of the parameter is increased only when the user actively views the message. Accordingly, the extent to which a user accesses a message (the amount of access) can be measured more accurately because apparent access by inactive users can be measured and discounted.
The communication system according to the second aspect of the invention has a user database, which stores characteristics of the respective terminal users, and a transmittal condition database, which stores a message ID in association with user characteristics suitable for that message and which is used for identifying messages based on those user characteristics. When a user requests a message, the user""s characteristics are read out from the user database based on a user ID for identifying the user. Then, a message ID is searched from the transmittal condition database based on the user""s characteristics read out from the user database. The messages found by the message searcher are read out from the message database, and transmitted to the user""s terminal. In this configuration, those messages that satisfy particular search conditions, which correspond to certain user characteristics, are searched for. As a result, users can readily find advertisements for goods or services, which match their interests, and advertisers can efficiently provide messages to potential users who have a high probability of purchasing their goods.
The communication system according to the third aspect of the invention has a means for selling goods and services to users through a communications network. The price of a good or service is discounted according to the value of the aforementioned parameter assigned to the user. When a good or service is sold to a user, the value of the parameter for the user is decreased. In this configuration, the price of a good or service is modified according to the value of the parameter, which corresponds to the frequency of accessing messages. Those users who have parameters with higher values will pay less for the same goods or services. This encourages users to operates messages frequently and actively.
The communication system according to the fourth aspect of the invention determines whether or not a user is active by detecting whether any actions are performed on the terminal within a predetermined period of time. For example, if the user is away from the terminal for a while, the aforementioned parameter is prevented from being increased.
The communication system according to the fifth aspect of the invention provides an operation window when displaying a message on a terminal. The communication system determines if the user is active by detecting whether or not the operation window has been operated on. Even if a plurality of windows is opened on the terminal, the aforementioned parameter is increased only when the user is actually watching the operation window, which shows the message.
The communication system according to the sixth aspect of the invention determines if the user is active by detecting whether or not the user returns an appropriate answer in response to the text contained in a message. This prevents the situation in which the parameter is increased even when the user gives an unreasonable answer without reading the text displayed in the window.
The communication system according to the seventh aspect of the invention stops increasing the value of the parameter by interrupting the display of the message on the users terminal. This configuration prevents messages from being transmitted to terminals in vain when the user is not actively recognizing the message.
In the communication system according to the eighth aspect of the invention, the message database has a first message for increasing the value of the parameter when it is displayed on the user""s display, and a second message which does not increase the value of the parameter even if it is displayed on the display. When it is determined that the user is not active, the communication system stops transmitting the first message in order to prevent the value of the parameter from increasing. The second message is continuously transmitted to the terminal without increasing the value of the parameter.
The communication system according to the ninth aspect of the invention further has a connection means for accessing Internet which has host computers. The user""s terminal establishes a first data link with a host computer through a communications network and Internet, and establishes a second data link to the transmittal condition database through a communications network. The user transmits data to the message-transmission database using the second data link. Because two independent data links are established, the terminal can transmit a request for a message to the transmittal condition database and receive information for identifying the message, while the user is accessing desired home pages through the first data link.
In the communication system according to the tenth aspect of the invention, when the terminal user requests access to a host computer connected to Internet, the communication system transmits an identification signal for identifying a transmitter for the terminal. The terminal establishes a data link with the transmitter using the identification signal, and further establishes the aforementioned second data link. The terminal can identify the transmitter using the identification signal promptly and reliably.
The communication system according to the eleventh aspect of the invention increases the value of the aforementioned parameter on the condition that the user appropriately responds to the question contained in the message displayed on the display. This configuration urges users to respond to the question.
The communication system according to the twelfth aspect of the invention stores update information, which is updated independently of the terminal, and transmits the update information to each terminal through a communications network a predetermined number of times. This information, for example, information about the updating of the communications software, is important to users. Conventional Internet providers do not have a means for actively notifying users of this information via Internet browser. However, in the present invention, the communication system can display this information on the terminal a predetermined number of times without fail.
The communication system according to the thirteenth aspect of the invention determines whether the update information has already been transmitted to the user. If it has not, the communication system transmits the update information to the user. The update information is reliably transmitted to every user at least once without fail.
The communication system according to the fourteenth aspect of the invention counts the number of times the update information was transmitted to each user. If the update information has not been transmitted to the user the predetermined number of times, then the communication system transmits the update information at the time the terminal is connected to the communication system. As soon as the communication starts up between the terminal and the communication system, the update information is displayed on the terminal.
In the communication system according to the fifteenth aspect of the invention, new update information is transmitted to the user when a predetermined period has passed since the last transmission of the update information. If the predetermined time is set to the time the information was updated last, the update information is automatically transmitted to the user once, at the next connection.
The communication system according to the sixteenth aspect of the invention has a message database which stores at least one of images, texts, sounds and combinations thereof. This data is transmitted to a terminal connected to a communications network. The communication system further has a display means for displaying the message transmitted to the terminal, a user database which is connected to the communications network and stores users"" characteristics, and a transmittal condition database which is connected to the communications network and stores the message ID in association with user characteristics suitable for that message for identifying a message based on those user characteristics.
When the user requests a message, the user""s characteristics are read out from the user database based on the user ID for identifying the user. Then, a message ID is searched from the transmittal condition database based on the user""s characteristics, which were read out from the user database. The messages found by the message searcher are read out from the message database, and transmitted to the terminal. In this configuration, appropriate messages are searched for based on users"" characteristics, and transmitted to the respective users. Thus users can find advertisements for the goods or services in which they are interested.
In the communication system according to the seventeenth aspect of the invention, when the user operates a message, the communication system stores the type of the operation (i.e. message display, home page display, or materials request) and the user""s ID in association with the message ID for identifying that message. This configuration allows for the determination of the types of operations executed by each user. The conventional method was not capable of extracting the number of times messages were operated or the types of operations for each user. Moreover, the communication system of the preferred embodiment searches each user""s characteristics from the user database using the recorded user ID, and the searched user characteristics found and the type of operation are stored in association with the message ID. Thus message providers can know the characteristics of the user, such as sex, age, etc.
The communication system according to the eighteenth aspect of the invention stores a user ID for identifying a user who operates a message, in association with the message ID for identifying that message. The transmittal condition database stores the message ID of a target message in association with message IDs of other related messages. When users request a message, the message searcher means searches all the messages and retrieves those messages whose user ID is the same as that of the requested message ID. The target messages are transmitted to only those users who operated the messages that are associated with the target message. For example, the advertisement message for the goods xe2x80x9cski suitxe2x80x9d is associated with the advertisement message for the goods xe2x80x9cskisxe2x80x9d. The advertisement message for xe2x80x9cski suitxe2x80x9d is supplied to only those users who operates the advertisement message for xe2x80x9cskisxe2x80x9d.